Investigation charge now given to CID

Police have handed over the charge of investigation into the rape and murder of Comilla college student Sohagi Jahan Tonu to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).
In a statement issued yesterday, the Police Headquarters said it handed over the investigation to the CID because of the importance of the case.
Comilla police and the Detective Branch of police will also continue their own investigations.

Police have handed over the charge of investigation into the rape and murder of Comilla college student Sohagi Jahan Tonu to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

In a statement issued yesterday, the Police Headquarters said it handed over the investigation to the CID because of the importance of the case.

Comilla police and the Detective Branch of police will also continue their own investigations.

Apart from these three agencies, the Rapid Action Battalion is conducting a shadow investigation into the murder while the Inter Services Public Relations in a statement said the army authorities were providing full support to the police in its probe.

On March 20, Tonu, a second-year history student of Comilla Victoria Government College, was raped and murdered inside the Mainamati Cantonment. Her father Yaar Hossain, an office assistant of the Cantonment board, filed a case with Kotowali police the next day against unidentified assailants.

Getting the charge of investigation, a team of the CID arrived in Comilla yesterday and met police Superintendent Shah Abid Hossain.

Confirming it in the evening, Comilla Additional SP Ali Ashraf Bhuyan told the Dhaka Tribune that the CID team arrived in the afternoon and they were holding a meeting with the SP office. He said the team had also visited the crime scene and the cantonment.

About probe progress, CID’s Special Superintendent Mirza Abdullahel Baqui said they had just started assisting the investigation and nothing could be disclosed immediately.

Meanwhile, no decision on conducting Tonu’s post-mortem again was made as of last night.

Following a court order, the district administration gave the responsibility of taking care of this to Upazila Nirbahi Officer Begum Lufunnahar and Muradnagar Assistant Commissioner (land) Ali Azgar.

Bangara police OC Moazzem Hossain told the Dhaka Tribune that a police team had been on duty at Tonu’s grave since Monday and hoped the body would be exhumed today morning.

The PHQ statement

Signed by police’s Additional Deputy Inspector General Nazrul Islam, the Police Headquarters statement says collecting evidence against a particular person in Tonu murder will take time as the incident did not happen publicly.

“The accused is identified in such a clueless crime by collecting evidential and circumstantial testimony in a scientific manner, analysing and evaluating those. There are chances of mistakes in arresting someone depending on just suspicion,” the statement reads.

“Even the actually accused person/persons may take advantage of such mistakes.

“We are determined to arrest the real culprits of Tonu murder after identifying them first,” it adds.

Police say they are respectful to the demonstration demanding resolving the mystery behind Tonu

murder, but they object to blocking roads. Besides hassles to

public, this also creates barriers to police’s work, the statement says.

“There is no need for any movement or demonstration to demand arrest of the responsible persons behind a murder. That is a professional and moral duty of the police,” the statement says.

The PHQ sought people’s cooperation that is favourable for a proper investigation into Tonu murder.